Blood Guilt

by Marie Treanor

  “What?” Mihaela dropped Elizabeth’s hand, which she’d been squeezing with helpless emotion, and jumped up to face him. “No!”

  “Mihaela,” Elizabeth objected. “He was always going to go. You must know that. You need to work together. After Saloman, he’s the strongest vampire there is, and he understands stone.”

  Mihaela jammed both hands in her pockets in a belated effort to hide her clenched fists. She was giving far too much away by her reaction and changing nothing. Elizabeth was right. Maximilian had traced Robbie. He’d never been going to leave it there. She’d never truly imagined that he would just run off back to Scotland again. He’d decided before all this happened that he would dance to Saloman’s tune. It seemed they were both doing that now.

  Elizabeth took her hand again. “Come on,” she said gently, leading her from the room as if she were some injured child. With the click of the door behind them, Mihaela snapped out of it, blinking at her friend in wonder.

  “Bloody hell, Elizabeth, a baby!”

  “I know.” Elizabeth’s voice cracked. “Crazy, isn’t it?”

  “My God!” Mihaela threw her arms around her, hugging her. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time because it was so amazing and Elizabeth was so happy. Because Elizabeth, against all the odds, would have it all.

  And if there was a tiny voice inside Mihaela crying because she couldn’t have any, it was too mean and trivial to listen to.

  “How long have you known?” Mihaela demanded. “Are you both well? When are you due?”

  Elizabeth laughed, beginning to walk on and climb the stairs. “Since the battle in the library. Saloman sensed its life that night, and I’ve been tested at the doctor’s too. Everything’s fine. As to when the baby’ll be born, I really don’t know.”

  Mihaela blinked. “If your memory’s that bad, you can count.”

  “It’s not my memory or my calculation that’s the problem,” Elizabeth said ruefully. “Ancients—mortal Ancients—carried their babies for a full year. I’m no Ancient, so God knows what’ll happen. And if I run beyond nine months, God knows how I’ll prevent the doctors from inducing the birth too early.”

  Mihaela squeezed her shoulders. “And the baby,” she asked with difficulty. “Will it be—um—like you or like Saloman?”

  Elizabeth lifted one slightly mocking eyebrow. “You mean will the baby be human or vampire? Neither. Nobody is born a vampire. She’ll be part human, part Ancient. Mortal Ancient, I mean, like Saloman was before his people turned him.”

  And Elizabeth carried the Ancient gene, which was perhaps how she managed to conceive from Saloman in the first place. But this was a huge can of worms, with ramifications Mihaela couldn’t get her head round just yet. She was too full of Elizabeth’s joy.

  She hugged her friend again, fiercely. “And you don’t really care about any of that, do you? Because you’re so damned happy about the whole thing.”

  Elizabeth’s face broke into smiles. “I am,” she admitted. “And awed. And scared shitless by the responsibility.” She released Mihaela, sobering. “You know this knowledge would be a gift to Saloman’s enemies.”

  Mihaela nodded.

  “We’re keeping it quiet as long as possible,” Elizabeth said, continuing upstairs to the next floor. “No one else knows apart from Dmitriu.”

  “My lips are sealed,” Mihaela promised. “I won’t even buy baby clothes. Where are we going?”

  “To find Maximilian. Apparently he’s in the attic. Oh, these are my rooms.” She pointed across the hall from the landing and went on up the narrowed staircase. “I’ll show you them later, if you like. Best grab Maximilian while the going’s good.”

  Mihaela regarded her, trying very hard not to think about Maximilian. “You love this, don’t you? Living in this madhouse, never knowing what’s round the corner or what vampire you might fall over where…”

  “I do,” Elizabeth admitted. “It’s as if suddenly I…fit.” She gave a quick smile. “I never even thought that was important before. Mihaela?” Elizabeth paused, her hand on what was, presumably, the attic door.

  “What?” Mihaela asked, concentrating more on controlling the beat of her heart. He would hear it.

  “I’m glad you came,” Elizabeth said and went in. Feeling oddly warmed, even strengthened, by her friend’s words and the emotion behind them, Mihaela followed her.

  “Maximilian!” Elizabeth called. “Max, are you there?”

  They were in a huge room under the roof, packed with old furniture and rolled-up carpets, toys, china, luggage, umpteen chests and trunks.

  “I often wonder who this house belonged to,” Elizabeth said cheerfully, while quick, steady footsteps warned Mihaela that Maximilian was almost upon them.

  He appeared from behind a dusty, eighteenth-century screen. He wore, inevitably, jeans and a black T-shirt, although there were splodges of paint on it. The reason was easy enough to guess. He held a paintbrush in one hand, and his eyes moved past Elizabeth to Mihaela’s face.

  Mihaela stared back defiantly.

  “I brought Mihaela,” Elizabeth observed. “You probably need to talk before you leave. Angyalka’s booked you on the nine o’clock flight.”

  That distracted Mihaela from her objection that she had nothing whatsoever to talk to Maximilian about.

  “Angyalka?” she repeated. “From the Angel Club?”

  “She’s started a sideline as a vampire travel agency,” Elizabeth said with a grin. Even Maximilian allowed himself a brief, almost fleeting smile. “Right, I’d better get on with some work. Mihaela, give me a shout before you go…”

  ****

  When Elizabeth reentered Saloman’s drawing room, she had the bizarre feeling that he was talking telepathically to some distant vampire while playing the piano and reading from the computer screen at the same time. She didn’t put it past him, but it made her feel weird.

  However, other issues were more pressing, and as soon as she shut the door behind her, she said abruptly, “I don’t like it, Saloman.”

  Saloman’s eyes didn’t so much as flicker, although there was a slight pause, as if he were disengaging from one or more activity. The Chopin study, however, went smoothly on as his gaze transferred from the computer screen to Elizabeth.

  “What do you not like?” he inquired.

  “Letting Mihaela go alone after these vampires.”

  “She won’t be alone. She’ll be with Maximilian.”

  “Yes, well that bothers me even more. She’s frightened of him, Saloman, and if you knew Mihaela as I do, you’d realize how shocking that is.”

  Saloman stopped playing and watched her pacing, so she knew she had his full attention at last.

  “And what do you suppose causes that fear?” he asked mildly.

  Elizabeth wasn’t fooled. She stopped walking to turn and face him, frowning. “I don’t know. But she hasn’t got István and Konrad for this. I should be with her.”

  “It isn’t you she needs,” Saloman said. “It’s Maximilian.”

  “Damn it, I know he’s strong and useful, but she needs someone she can trust. I can’t let her walk into this alone, even with the baby to consider.” She walked toward him and put her arms around his neck. “Saloman, I won’t risk the baby. I won’t fight. I’ll just be there for her,” she pleaded.

  Saloman’s lips curved into the smile she loved as he drew her onto his lap. “Elizabeth.” His face moved in her hair, against the skin of her neck, as if he was inhaling the scent of her blood—which he probably was. Since they’d discovered Elizabeth’s pregnancy, he’d taken very little blood from her, and his occasional look of predatory starvation filled her with awe and pride. It was, besides, more than a little exciting.

  She touched her lips to his earlobe and whispered, “Saloman…” No longer sure whether she was seducing him for Mihaela’s sake or her own, she was nevertheless gratified when she felt the unmistakable response of his body. Her own felt warm and sensual, wit
h his erection growing under her buttocks, and when one of his hands slid inside her sweater with obvious intent, it became difficult to remember what she’d wanted of him in the first place.

  His mouth found hers, and she melted. He’d never taken her on the piano before, and the sudden fantasy fuelled her lust like petrol on a naked flame. After all, the lid was down…

  His lips loosened on hers to speak against her mouth. “She smells of Maximilian.”

  That froze her. It didn’t deter Saloman, who was dealing with the fastenings of his trousers.

  “You mean…?” Elizabeth began.

  “Exactly.”

  “But…” It was mind-numbing. Mihaela, who’d so feared Elizabeth’s relationship with Saloman, had had sex with a vampire?

  “Maximilian is coming back to—life, for want of a better term,” Saloman said, dealing brutally with her underwear. “If Mihaela isn’t the cause of that, she’s certainly aiding the process.”

  Elizabeth swallowed. It was hard to think when he was adjusting her so that he could push inside her while attaching his mouth to her nipple and sucking in a long, hard, intensely pleasurable stream. “Oh Jesus, Saloman,” she gasped. “I can accept it might be good for Maximilian, but what of Mihaela? She’s much more fragile than she appears—”

  Saloman detached his mouth from her breast and stood up, lifting her, throbbing inside her. “And would you say,” he inquired, walking, “that she was happy before?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then let them run with it. After all, what in the world is wrong with fucking a vampire?”

  “Nothing,” said Elizabeth, enchanted, as he laid her on the lid of the piano. “Nothing at all.” And in the hot, breathless minutes that followed she thanked God, profoundly, for her vampire lover’s mind-reading abilities.

  ****

  There was a moment of panic when Mihaela realized Elizabeth was leaving her alone with Maximilian, an instant when she almost ran after her. Only pride prevented her, and the knowledge that she needed Maximilian for this mission. If she went to the hunter network, they’d take her off the case because of Gavril’s crimes against her family. She was too closely involved for objectivity and therefore safety.

  They’d be right of course. That her actions had already allowed Gavril to escape with Robbie proved that without question, and although she knew in her gut that she would never repeat this dire mistake, promises wouldn’t weigh with them.

  Konrad wouldn’t mention that Gavril was the vampire who killed her family, but they’d know. They always knew about such things. So why hadn’t she?

  Brushing that aside for the moment, she realized the silence was going on too long, and that Maximilian was quite prepared to let it. She’d rejected him last night in an emotional mess.

  This beautiful, mind-blowingly sensual creature had come to make love to her, an event far more exciting than even the sexiest of her erotic dreams of him. And she’d sent him away. Since she’d been halfway to hysteria and covered in tears—and probably snot—at the time, he may well have been grateful for that. But vampires had their pride, much as humans did. The most surprising thing about the whole awful visit was probably that he’d gone at her command. They both knew he could have taken her anyway, and without rape. But he hadn’t.

  Her throat closed up. She was damned if she’d be grateful for that. Attack had always been her best method of defense, and she looked wildly now for a verbal weapon. She found it in the paintbrush, still casually held at his side, dripping small drops of green paint onto the attic floor.

  She curled her lip. “Painting more pictures of me?”

  “No.” There was a pause, as there often was in Maximilian’s speech, long enough to make her feel her jibe had backfired. Then he added, “You’re not—ready yet.”

  “What do you mean by that?” she demanded.

  His lips stretched, but it wasn’t quite a smile. He walked away.

  Mihaela closed her mouth, and although she hadn’t wanted this encounter, she followed him, because she was only too aware they had to have it.

  “My father was a seismologist,” she said to his back.

  Maximilian glanced over his shoulder, regarding her through the junk. He seemed to be frowning. “Are you sure?”

  “I found references on the Internet to papers he’d written. I even read one of them. You sound surprised.”

  “I am,” he admitted, moving on to where two easels stood with a table between covered in pots and tubes of paint, palettes and brushes and rags.

  “It was what I expected,” Mihaela said.

  He didn’t respond to that, merely asked, “And your mother?”

  “I found nothing about her at all. Perhaps she just helped my father.”

  Although she hadn’t meant to show any interest in his paintings at all, curiosity made her stand beside him and look. Her eyes widened.

  One was a seascape, looking toward the land—she rather thought it had been his view from the island or from a boat leaving the island for the shore. It was dusk in the painting, and there was a fine mist covering it; and yet there was none of the bleakness or the looming menace of his other landscapes that she’d seen on the island. The pink and gold of the sunset, even muted in the damp mist that was almost rain, seemed rather to betoken life and hope.

  She glanced at the other picture. Unmistakably Budapest in the snow. As seen from the Angel roof. And again, despite the bleakness of the weather he depicted, there was a peculiar warmth about the painting. It was in the quality of light reflected in the white snow, in the loving detail of the stone buildings and the wide, gracious Danube flowing through the middle.

  “You should exhibit these,” she said without thinking. “And your other work.”

  “Why?” he asked. Clearly it had never entered his head.

  “People would want them,” she said impatiently. “Whatever else you are, Maximilian, you’re a bloody good artist.”

  “After six hundred years, I probably should be.” He threw the brush onto the table. Now it was he who seemed restless. “I paint and draw and sculpt because I have to. It passes the time and keeps me sane. It isn’t for other people.”

  “What, never? Even when you were alive? Didn’t you have patrons? Admirers of your work?”

  He stared at her. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Talent shouldn’t be squandered,” she said severely. She wasn’t even sure why she felt so passionately about the issue. It was up to him. Why should she care what he did with his life or his gifts? And yet, for the first time, she wondered about his life, his first life in the era of Michelangelo and Leonardo. About how and why Saloman had made him a vampire. To Mihaela’s knowledge, the Ancient had only ever made two in the millennia of his existence, both unusual and enigmatic characters. People you’d never get bored with.

  Appalled by this sudden thought, she dragged her eyes free to stare again at the paintings he’d obviously dashed off since being here in Budapest.

  You love only a very few, he’d said to her on the island, and it was true. She blamed it on her work, on her own personal issues that prevented her even wanting to be close to people. Despite the loneliness and the occasional, strange yearnings for a normal life and happiness. She played at normal, sometimes, going out with acquaintances, holding dinner parties that generally left her bored. The truth was, while she’d die to protect their right to live, she didn’t really like most people. Maybe her life was just too different from theirs.

  But there had never been a time when she was bored in Maximilian’s company.

  Because you’ve only spent a few hours with him in total! And most of them were fucking.

  Oh Jesus, don’t go there.

  “Robbie,” she ground out, more harshly than she intended. “Is he still safe? I think I should catch the afternoon’s flight to Malta, get a head start—”

  “He’s perfectly safe. Gavril’s still gathering vampires to help him. They’re trickling
in to him. He has six now at the villa. If too many come at once, Saloman would sense the gathering. Gavril will know that and is trying to avoid it.”

  “Then he doesn’t know we’re on to him?” That, at least, was good news.

  “He knows we want Robbie back,” Maximilian said, picking up his paintbrush and adding a tiny stroke to the sea. “You, for reasons of human sentiment, me because he imagines I want the boy’s power for my own uses. That’s why he’s mobilized his friends and debtors against us. But he doesn’t know I’ve read his mind about the earthquakes. He imagines his mind-shields are much stronger than they are. He also makes the mistake of imagining a defeated vampire is a weak one.”

  Frowning at the picture, he tossed down the brush again, as if frustrated. Mihaela dragged her gaze from the canvas to his face. “Because Zoltán defeated you over two hundred years ago?”

  “I didn’t fight back after the first battle. It’s not an unusual opinion. Vampires have made the same mistake about Dmitriu. Despite being Saloman’s creation, he never made any play for power, so they imagine he has very little of his own. It can play to our advantage.”

  “It’s not a trick you can use indefinitely,” she pointed out.

  A glimmer of humor touched his eyes. It was oddly charming. “I have others.”

  Oh, I know you have… She dropped her gaze, dragging her mind back to what mattered.

  “In Malta,” she said, “will we be racing each other or working together?”

  She felt his gaze burning into her face. The silence stretched until she looked back up at him.

  “That’s up to you,” he said.

  She blinked. “It was you who left me sleeping on the island just to get ahead and find him first!”

  “You mustn’t give Robbie to the hunters.”

  “The hunters won’t harm him,” she said, frowning.

  “Yes,” Maximilian said, “they will. He needs freedom to develop, and he needs help to control and focus his psychic skills. Not dogma and constraints that will warp and damage him.”

  Somewhere, buried deep within her, there was warmth because he’d thought about Robbie’s welfare. But she couldn’t dwell on that; she couldn’t even think just then about how wrong he was. Because the discovery of his opinion made her feel physically sick.